Hit By a Pitch

As a vegetarian, I’m always interested to learn about professional athletes who also are vegetarians or might lean in that direction. It’s not all that common.

Today, Michael Silver’s “The Gameface” on Yahoo! featured Tony Gonzalez and his “neo-vegan” diet. I’ve never heard of “neo-vegan” before, but according to the article it involves “swearing off most dairy products and meat,” eating fish and “the occasional chicken dish,” and lecturing other people about what they eat.

I’ll give props to Gonzales for a few things. First, he’s really thinking about what he eats and trying to be healthy. That’s cool. Also, I’ll never fault someone for giving up some or all meat and dairy products. Finally, I won’t blame him for the term “neo-vegan,” because he doesn’t use it himself.

But?

What’s up with the lectures? If there’s one thing that’s annoying about being a vegetarian, it’s the fact that so many times you’ll encounter a restaurant that has one vegetarian option and it involves mushrooms, which are disgusting. Okay, that doesn’t apply here. But if there’s a second thing that’s annoying about being a vegetarian, it’s encountering meat eaters who assume that you’re preachy and annoying because they maybe one time encountered some vegan Trustafarian (I think “Trustafarian” is funny) kid from Boulder who went on and on and on about the evils of meat, cruelty to animals, and the destruction of the environment as we know it before getting into mommy’s Land Rover and driving to the mall to beg spare change and cigarettes off of strangers who make less per month than he gets in allowance. I suspect that most normal vegetarians hate this shit as much as you guys do.

Aside from that, isn’t “neo-vegan” just another way of saying “flexitarian,” which is someone who is, like, um, kind of a vegetarian sometimes except when she isn’t and, like, eats meat and stuff because oooooh bacon yum? Honestly? If you call yourself a flexitarian, I’d kind of like to punch you in the face. Do you know what you call a vegetarian who eats meat sometimes? NOT A VEGETARIAN. Why in the hell do you need a label for that?

I’m kidding about this. Really, I don’t give a shit what you call yourself. However, it gets a little annoying when you’re an actual vegetarian and people think you eat fish and chicken because they’ve encountered so many “vegetarians” who eat fish and chicken (and you don’t want to get preachy about your eating habits).

It also gets annoying when people make up words to define shit that doesn’t need to be defined. Do words like flexitarian or gastrosexual (no really, I read about this the other day — it’s an unappetizing term for  “dude who likes to cook as a way of making himself more appealing to women” or some shit) really add anything to anybody’s understanding?

Maybe I should make up a few words to describe obscure conditions:

• A “Scaliatarian” is one who strictly construes “vegetarian” to mean somebody who does not eat anything that contains dead animal, be it steak, chicken, fish, jello, beef broth, or Altoids.
• A “neo Broncos fan” is an individual who is a Broncos fan except when they suck, in which case she cheers for the team from her city of origin.
• A “flexifanian” is somebody who cheers for whoever is winning and/or the Red Sox or Yankees despite having no connection to Boston or New York.
• A “Carmeloite” is an out-of-shape basketball player who refuses to ever play any defense.

I could go on all day! Lucky for you, I won’t.